My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(26)
“Pardon my aunt’s maid, gentlemen,” he says. Then he huffs in your direction before hissing in your ear, “What the devil do you think you are playing at?”
You ignore him pointedly.
“Pardon her lady’s companion, gentlemen.” You smirk. “As well as your host’s fine manners. I come only to entreat you, Sir Benedict, to entertain your female guests. In fact, all of you charming gentlemen are sorely needed to fill a dance card or two. Morale is falling abysmally low among the womenfolk, I’m afraid.”
A few among the crowd chuckle good-naturedly. Some men, in their cups, eye you up and down. But Benedict shifts his weight in his chair from one long, lean, well-muscled leg to the other. “These women,” he drawls, “do not count you among their number, dare I say?”
“Dare as you wish, sir.” You feel bold enough to seat yourself in an empty chair near the table, a bit of impudence that causes Benedict’s eyes to flash with shock. “I have no desire to dance this evening. Not when there is detective work to do.”
You anticipate more deliciously slow back-and-forth with old Benny, but instead he throws his hand of cards on the table, flies to his feet, and grips you firmly by the elbow. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he says with forced jollity, “but I shall help the lady find her way to the dance floor.”
The jollity ceases the moment you are out of earshot.
“What do you think you’re about, woman?” Benedict seethes when you have reached the chamber outside the game room. “Prattling on endlessly in your absolutely vulgar way, pretending to be one of the gentlemen when you are so clearly not.” His eyes flicker down briefly before he rights himself. “You are barely one of the gentlewomen.”
Gratified that he is so flustered (for Benedict, anyway) that he cannot even stop from drinking in a quick sight of you in your evening dress, you decide to press on.
“Well,” you say sweetly, “do you wish to hear my news or not?”
“No!” he cries, disgust and exasperation coloring his strong features. “I do not wish to hear your news, nor do I wish you to discover any more that pertains to me and my family.”
“But what if the information I find saves you from ruin?” You smile, all icy calm. The nerve of this man.
Benedict stares incredulously and in frustration runs a hand through his now very disheveled hair. To your annoyance, it only improves his appearance.
“Saves me from—? Listen, the only ruin that matters to me is the ruin that shall rain down if I am found strangling an impudent, gold-digging busybody of a lady’s companion. Halt your line of inquiry. Let me be so-called ruined. Above all, let me be! Do you understand?” His grip is so tight, and his body so close, that you see tiny drops of perspiration appearing at his temples, sliding down the cut-crystal angles of his face, and coming to rest at the top of your cleavage.
With a quick, deep look into his eyes, you see that he has taken in the droplet’s trajectory as well.
“Do I make. Myself. Clear?” he says through gritted teeth.
You stare back, aware that your breath is short and your bosom is heaving. You are not quite sure, but somehow the two of you have managed to find yourselves at the entrance of a small curtained-off alcove in a darkened corner. It is tempting. Oh, so tempting.
Do you give him what for? There’s intrigue afoot and a mystery to be solved! Turn to this page.
Or do you give in to your basest desires? Turn to this page.
Watching Lady Evangeline at work fascinates you. Her slender hands run over the paper so delicately that you shiver to imagine such a touch. Golden curls fall from her careless coiffure and tumble down her long neck. What would those curls look like spread across a pillow? She pauses, concentrating, and bites her swollen lower lip. A lower lip that just moments ago was so close that all you needed to do was turn your head to find it touching yours. What would such a mouth be like to kiss?
This is madness. Lady Evangeline is your employer and your dear friend, nothing more. You simply need to clear your head.
“Shall I fetch us more tea?” you say. Lady Evangeline glances up, the light from a nearby window dancing across her divinely beautiful face, which she breaks with a distinctly un-goddess-like mischievous grin. Unfortunately for you, this only serves to make her even more desirable.
“That would be marvelous.”
You scurry out of the room before doing something you would surely regret. You have ventured barely halfway down the corridor when you hear something close to a scuffle, followed by a sudden silence. Did you imagine it? There’s not a soul in sight and it is deathly quiet. Too quiet…
Do you go back and alert Lady Evangeline? Yes, it’s probably nothing, but many years of hardship have taught you to trust your instincts, and right now your instincts are saying “AAAARGH!” Go to this page.
Or do you investigate by yourself? Lady Evangeline is hard at work, and an eerie silence does not an emergency make. Also, turning back would look fairly strange. Turn to this page.
You hold your ground, as defiant as Boadicea in the face of the Roman onslaught. Craven is shocked at your boldness and bravery.
“I know this has haunted you, my love. The very weight of what happened tortures you, even now,” you say to him, your voice a cool balm for his fevered soul. “But I must implore you, I must beg you, to tell me what happened. If I do fear you afterward, if I do leave you, then it will be nothing more or less than what you have assumed I would do. And if I do not, then you will know that my love for you is as unbending and unchanging as death itself!”